Shirov draws in 6th Round, Corus 2010

In Wijk ann Zee, Netherlands, Alexei Shirov, Spain, draws his game against Nigel Short, United Kingdom in the Corus Chess 2010 being played from 15th – 31st January 2010 and he still leads with 1.5 points with 5.5 points.

Alexei Shirov failed to improve on Viktor Korchnoy’s record for the longest winning streak in the Corus Tournament when he settled for a draw with white in Friday’s sixth round against Nigel Short. Korchnoy started with an 8-out-of-8 series to win the 1968 edition of the annual chess event at Wijk-aan-Zee for a final score of 12 out of 15, losing only one game – to Lajos Portisch. Shirov got no further than 5 out of 5.

“I stopped the unstoppable machine,” Short proudly told reporters after agreeing to Shirov’s peace proposal at the 31st move of their Ruy-Lopez encounter. “In fact, it didn’t even look like it was going anywhere. On the contrary, at the end white had to tread very carefully in order to avoid getting the worst of it.”
If the draw was a setback, Shirov did not show it. And why should he? Halfway through the 13-round tournament, the Spanish GM remained on top of the A-Group standings, 1.5 points ahead of the world’s highest rated player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, and three other competitors sharing the second spot.

Here is the crosstable after round 6 of the Corus 2010 in Netherlands

(source: Coruschess 2010)